Anyway, Mortal Kombat's core product has to go away for a bit. 3-5 years or so. This is the general time to wash a shitty taste out of a consumers mouth on a major entertainment product. At the same time, removing MK from the zeitgeist of pop culture is stupid as it will leave you with years of no one thinking about MK. Thankfully (maybe?) we have a sequel MK film coming out...and hopefully it's better than the garbage one that came out. Fingers crossed.
So we're shelving Mortal Kombat as a fighting game for about 5 years. Our next MK fighter would shoot for somewhere between 2029 to 2030 or so. It sucks but this is how rehab works.
We're now in 2025 stage where we need to start bringing good feelings back and earning some trust. For this we're working on and then releasing what we're going to call From the Krypt: Mortal Kombat. The collection is a budget-priced (should be no more than $40) collection of classic MK games. MK I, II, 3, UMK3 and Mortal Kombat 9. "Experience the trilogy all over again". Something like that. This has to include a shit ton of settings and features, almost all of which should be cheap AF to implement. The biggest issue is going to be setting them all up for online play but that is a necessary component to start getting MK's shit together with online play. We'll earn brownie points by throwing stuff into every 2d game like having Goro, Reptile and Shang all playable in MK I and Kintaro, Smoke, Jade, Shao and Noob all playable in MK II. On top of that, we're giving them all endings. Think this is hard? This is trivially easy to do with existing resources and shows effort by MK. We'll put a collection in the game loaded with art from the MK 1-3 era. As much as we can. This needs to feel like a great value and a love letter to fans. MK9 helps with that as well, bringing back the game that brought MK back.
If this kollection does well, it could set-up a 3d-era re-release as well. That would not be part of the pitch, it would be contingent on success. I just feel strongly both would be a success.
Meanwhile, we're also approaching MK from another angle with a mobile release. Mortal Kombat: Puzzle Fighter gets released for mobile devices and PCs within our time frame. It follows the DNA of the classic Puzzle Fighter but is a new version of the game with a face-lift. Puzzle Fighter is a weird approach but we're going for accessible, fun games here and Puzzle Fighter will have a bit of buzz as a return of a classic mini-game. Tekken Bowl was popular for a reason after all. Novelty can go a LONG way with word of mouth. MK: PF is going to focus on an actual game experience here where the fighting is replaced with puzzle fighting and it will include a presentation of the MK story/lore for characters in that format. A cute approach to a retelling of classic MK stuff and by classic I mean the entire Midway era. Again, we're not doing anything insane here graphically for overhead. Most mobile games get away just fine with dialogue and narrator style stuff and MK did that as well for quite a while.
This is eventually (or simultaneously) something that can be released on standard consoles as well. Potentially for free. I'm not going to get into how to monetize this thing. There's a lot of different ways. The focus would HAVE to be on something that
feels good for monetization and that is incredibly important. There can be no rip-off perception risks in the handling of this entire rehab process. People have to see value everywhere. Could do stuff like different costumes or something for the avatars, etc. Again, not getting into that.
At this point we've got two games/collections in our 5 year span that are keeping awareness up on MK from two different angles. Neither is expensive to do. Both should do well on returns. One is for fighting fans and one is for fans of the IP in general.
Our big game in this period, however, is going to be a 'big' game relative only to the other releases. It is nothing near the budget of an MK game's major release.
We're doing a beat'em up double-drop.
Shaolin Monks comes back with a release that has online play and an archive collection of related art/etc for it. Again, this is fairly budget like the other re-release. This should be another inexpensive re-release that has good returns and gives people the warm & fuzzies. Fix some stuff if necessary and make Scorp & Sub playable from the beginning. Minor crap.
We also release our most expensive (but still cheap by MK standards) title which is a full beat 'em up in a style that is a "first time ever" for Mortal Kombat. A 2d beat 'em up. The game goes full 2d pixel art and we release it to the standards of something like Shredder's Revenge. The big draw is going to be the core fun gameplay (with combo depth, etc) and classic MK style gore. The presentation will be tongue-in-cheek with things like references to the classic move, games and maybe even a reference to Defenders of the Realms or whatever. It's a celebration of everything MK from top to bottom. For playable characters we're looking at a roster of Liu, Lao, Sub, Scorp, Sonya and Jax. That seems reasonable within a starting budget. The choices are also important for presentation because the game is going to have a condensed retelling of MK through Armageddon. You fight Shaolin monks, Shang Tsung's guards, Outworld warriors, Tarkatans, Lin Kuei, Onaga's terra cotta soldiers, etc. The game is broken into 3 paths each corresponding to the linked characters. Liu & Lao follow the Shaolin Monks path, Scorp & Sub replay their rivalry and working together as Fire & Ice, and Sonya & Jax go through Special Forces stuff. Beating a path opens it up for the other characters to play through and would let us see the whole MK timeline including Sonya & Jax starting even earlier, covering stuff from Special Forces (yes, Special Forces) and Sub/Scorp having some mythologies levels. Only by having all three routes open do you get the whole timeline experience.
Again, I want to reiterate that this is a general overview of the timeline when you're playing. The game is NOT going for 100% accuracy. Hell, frame the game as Johnny Cage retelling the events to a little Cassie Cage or something and have him admit "I'm pretty sure this is how it went down. Okay maybe I'm making up some of it...but I'm pretty sure it's still close". The point is not to be 100% accurate...it's to be fun and hit the major story beats.
Ideally, we want to bring back some past voice actors that were fan favorites to record some lines but we're doing mostly text not a fully voiced game. We are also going to bring back classic MK jams and have some remixes thrown in as well. Again, we want to make a fun feeling with this game. In keeping with that, the gore will be presented in the same style as the game itself. Slightly over the top and a bit wacky...but in the same way classic MKs were. It's a pixel-game so a little goes a long way and it should be fast and fun to do fatalities against enemies on screen. We want a game as approachable as MKI and II were where it feels edgy but not explicit in a way that makes it absurd like modern MKs. Back in the day we all knew MK2 was goofy AF in a bad ass way. It wasn't like a movies gore. It was giblets exploding on a screen. Bring that feeling back so if a kid plays it it's not bad at all.
Assuming the game does well (and that is the assumption here), we do later DLCs for Mileena/Kitana to give us an Outworld view of the story with overhead saved by them being largely palette-swaps (like Sub & Scorp) and then the Deadly Alliance with Shang & Quan. I wouldn't assume major return on investment beyond that but if more characters can get released then cool. Sektor & Cyrax are another good possible late-release pair because, again, they're a palette swap.
All of this should bring us to our 2029-2030 mark.
That's the release of the new Mortal Kombat. This is where the big money is invested as a necessary evil. You gotta spend money to make money and at this point we should have seen near half a decade of ROI for the previous projects to prove appetite for MK is not only out there but, if we do it right, growing. During this time, if WB can greenlight a few more animated projects? FANTASTIC. Just make them less like Scorpion's Revenge and more like Snow Blind.
We need a trailer that highlights the history of the franchise all the way back to the first game. Then show the Krypt Kollection that focused on 1 through 3. Highlight the 1 and 3 and bring them together to 13. MK 13. Fuse the 1 and 3 together into a B for Mortal Kombat: B[something]. I'm not in charge of naming this shit. We need a good name that begins with B. Marketing can figure that shit out. Or hell someone can suggest something here.
And it's a full new game...but it's VERY new. Gone is the push for realism with the visual engine because it is just hurting the franchise in the long run. Instead, remember those WB animated projects I mentioned? EVERY casual I know that saw those liked them...even the shitty ones. And they loved the animation.
So we're going with a 3d version of that art style. Stylized. Slick. COLORFUL. We've seen it work similarly for Strive & similar games. We're going for something similar to the below. The art style needs to be clean, slick and bright but with deep blacks as well.
Now, this gives us a few strengths to work with. For one, it
immediately separates the game from the last generation of games. It visually conveys that we're past the MKX, 11, 1 period. It feels new to anyone looking at it. It also lets us rely far far less on realism and lets us dial back some things holding back MK. Realistic proportions are no longer necessary, allowing for bigger or smaller (and therefore more striking/interesting) characters which also helps with animating attacks. It also lets us jettison the detailed internals for characters. We do NOT want that anymore. It is an unnecessary gorefest that does not give juice worth the squeeze. At all. Instead, we're dealing with BUCKETS of blood spraying from characters like in classic anime, which can be used to stylistically cover some parts of the animations and model interactions. The animators can really go crazy with this. Similarly, removing limbs or breaking bones becomes far easier because, again, no hyper realism. A quick cut of a breaking bone with a visceral sound effect can overlay a limb instead of it having to be a rendered skeleton inside that specific character (which, along with the internal bodies to be mutilated, limits character body options).
Don't get me wrong. We're not jettisoning the gore. We're just changing how its presented. And we're doing it to save ourselves a lot of trouble on the back-end AND on censoring for release. Also hopefully it keeps our animators/artists from getting emotionally scarred from looking at real gore. Snow Blind is gory AF...but it's not realistic at all...and that works to its benefit. We're harnessing that same energy here.
Game-wise, we have a lot of work to do to make sure MK is where it needs to be on release and that goes beyond spiffy new graphical styling. We need it to be feature rich day 1 with everything that is expected from modern fighters. Detailed training mode, solid online play, replay stuff, tutorials, character challenges. I'd insist on a combo-upload/download system where players could upload a combo that others could download to try to recreate themselves to learn it. We'd also need a method of accessibility for new players...and I don't mean goddamn Easy Fatality tokens. I'm talking 'Auto-Kombo' system returns where a player can mash a button to get a cool looking combo. Is it optimal? No. Is it still a decent option and something that makes the game easy for new players? Yes. Are we including an easy-play option with one button specials and a simplified control scheme? ALSO YES. This game NEEDS to go back to being the 'ultra casual friendly' game while we also make it fun for competitive, serious folk.
I am split on the story because I only see two options. One: reboot again. This
sucks as an option and I would want to avoid it unless absolutely necessary to the point that the VAST majority of marketing research says its the only way forward. Personally, however, I'd incorporate everything. We'd do one step back and two steps forward. How? Return to the past...but not all the way. After MK1 and the events with timelines fucking with each other, the Elder Gods go
HELL NO and finally majorly step in, going back to the source of the problem with Armageddon with Shao winning.
Shao wins...because he has to to heal time. You can't stop the inevitable without breaking the timeline.
That leaves us with the aftermath of a victorious Kahn. However, we can't get too crazy here. We need to build off of Armageddon to have a story that lets us go somewhere. So the Elder Gods use their power to hatch a scheme against Kahn utilizing several champions they're able to split their power into. Who are these champions? It's a goddamn best-of-the-best roster selection from across MK. Everyone died in Armageddon except Shao but that's never stopped anyone before in MK...so the Elder Gods pick their champions and return them to life to work on facing the empowered Shao in Mortal Kombat. This lets us hand-pick whoever we want for the initial roster as part of a big scheme by the Elder Gods to take out Shao.
Why this way? It lets us acknowledge ALL the games and ALL the versions of the characters while also letting us deal with following up on MK: A to return us to a far more stable continuity. It does its best not to disrespect anything while also going back to roots. Of course, this will all take place in a story that is presented in a Konquest mode that has a lot to offer for single players. New character releases would add to that Konquest mode with additional story tidbits in the exact same way as new characters in SF6's World Tour mode.
Budget allowing, bringing in kreate-a-fighter in the same way as SF6 world tour would ALSO be fantastic. How to include them? I dunno, maybe just like Ermac, the Elder Gods create a champion that uses the soul energy of all those killed in Armageddon allowing them to use any moves and mix & match styles. Sure, whatever. Casuals (and lots of other people) love character creation and dress up. Nothing wrong with that.
Also put a goddamn plan in place for support. Realize that this game has to be in for the long haul and try to maximize ways to monetize it like that. Kreate-a-fighter gear stuff can help with that alongside new characters. Hell, shamelessly copy Capcom and put in an arcade mode where you can unlock old games from Midway that NRS has rights to. A shit ton of them are easy as hell to emulate and doing so adds negligible overhead. Just a suggestion. Either way, value value value. Offer value and you will keep customers coming. MK fans are INSANELY loyal and glad to throw money at the product if they aren't getting slapped in the fucking face.
